Hannes Schroll (June 13, 1909 – April 5, 1985) was an Austrian Alpine ski racer and founder of the Sugar Bowl Ski Resort in Norden, California. Early years Schroll grew up in an Austrian village near Salzburg, called Bischofshofen. Later on he began helping his mother run a small pension in the mountain village of Alpbach in the Tyrol east of Kitzbuhel, attending to guest. After his father fashioned a pair of barrel-stave skis for him, he won his first village race, receiving his first pair of hickory skis as a prize. Unconfirmed reports by Newspaper and Magazine articles have stated that Schroll had won up to one hundred ski races before arriving in America. Skiing career Schroll has been characterized as being very charismatic, funny and a larger-than-life social person that would often be heard Yodeling during skiing competitions. After winning the steepest race in the Italian Dolomites in 1934, the Marmolata, he was elected by Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to represent Austria at the 1935 U.S. National Downhill Championships and given a ticket to come to America. When he arrived by boat, he did not speak any English. Schroll then went on to win both the U.S. National Downhill and Slalom open combined category at Mt. Rainier, Washington, in 1935, on wooden skis. It was the first international race of its kind, held in the US to include both European and American skiers. Seven thousand people attended that year, as radio broadcasters carried reports of the events and the skiing conditions all across the US. Schroll was awarded the Silver Skis trophy. Donald Tresidder who was park president of Yosemite at the time, was a spectator at Mt. Rainier that particular day and invited Schroll to become the new ski school director in Yosemite at Badger Pass, in California, by hiring Schroll on the spot. Schrolls popularity at Yosemite and among skiers, more than doubled the number of skiers the next year coming to ski at Badger Pass. Schrolls popularity grew so much that photographer Ansel Adams once included a picture of Schroll, which he had taken in Yosemite of Schroll, for advertising. It's been said that Schroll had an Austrian Accent and would admonish students in the following way while giving them skiing instructions: "My zhtudent, you are zhtanding like a Chrizhtmaz tree! You are going to have to bend your kneez zooner or later, zo vhy